Pollen granules cover a person's hand.
Alastair Vance, CC BY 2.0
Pathway Summary
Anchoring phenomenon lesson
This pathway on the expansion of pollen season begins with students looking at social media posts from February complaining about how much pollen there is and how bad their allergies are. Students then look at mapped data of when tree, weed, and grass pollen season should be in Michigan and notice that February is early. They read news headlines and notice patterns in the headlines about the pollen season starting earlier, lasting longer, and being worse. Students then develop an initial model to explain 1) Why are allergy seasons getting worse over time and starting earlier? And 2) How does pollen cause allergies? They pose questions they need to answer to be more certain about their explanations, which motivates the unit.
Investigation lessons
Students spend the next lesson better understanding patterns in pollen emissions by graphing and analyzing pollen emission data over the past 50 years and comparing it to future pollen emission projections. They figure out that indeed tree, grass, and weed pollen emissions have increased from past emission levels and are projected to continue increasing in the future. Next, they explore why emissions are increasing over time in Michigan by gathering information from videos about what causes plants to flower and analyzing local air temperature data. They figure out phytochrome in plants triggers flowering and is influenced by not only night-lengths but also air temperature. Students then wonder how exactly pollen causes allergies. They start to answer that question by looking at pollen under the microscope and images of pollen from a scanning electron microscope. They observe that pollens from different plants have different sizes, shapes, and textures. They then obtain information from a video about how allergies work and develop, and use a model to simulate how a person allergic to pollen responds to an initial and secondary exposure.
Synthesize lesson
The lesson set ends with students using everything they’ve figured out to develop a final model to explain 1) Why are allergy seasons getting worse over time and starting earlier? And 2) How does pollen cause allergies? They navigate into the base unit knowing that it’s getting warmer and that's causing more pollen because it's released earlier and lasts longer and that pollen is projected to increase in many other places too. They wonder 1) why is it getting warmer? and ) is it getting warmer in other places too?
Culminating task
This culminating task aims to make the local community aware of changes in climate related to carbon emissions that result in the lengthening of allergy seasons. To do this, students first read about and reflect on city re-design solutions that can be implemented to curb carbon emissions. Students then imagine what the city might look like if the city was re-designed using these solutions. Finally, students create artwork designed to make people aware of the effects of local climate change. This artwork is designed to be satirical to avoid feelings of hopelessness and helplessness about climate change. Students share these pieces of artwork on social media to maximize visibility in their own community.
Phenomenon
Michigan's allergy season is starting earlier and lasting longer.
Community
Troy, MI is a suburb in northern Detroit. It has distinct seasons, with warm summers and cold winters. This climate is conducive for the production of tree, grass and weed pollen ranging from the months of March until October. Over time, the growing season in this area has been increasing due to warming temperatures.
Materials Available
Anchoring phenomenon lesson
3 Investigation lessons
1 Synthesize lesson
Culminating task
Key Features
Suburban
Family connection
Educator Insight
Teacher: Rebecca Brewer
Why I chose this phenomenon
I love to author materials and I recognize that I hadn’t done any around climate change. I had all these ideas in my head that I was looking forward to bringing to fruition. The anchoring phenomenon I chose for my students was that pollen levels are increasing due to extended growing seasons in Michigan, so making it local and more engaging for the students. I wanted to do the Lone Star Tick initially. It's range is increasing into Michigan, and there's a connection to a meat allergy in some people. I thought that was so fascinating. And, when I did a survey with the students to try to pick which phenomenon would be most interesting, it was split 50/50. Ultimately, I felt like I could develop more materials for the pollen unit.
How my students responded
Overall it went really well. What was different from my perspective is I had never spent so much time developing the opening phenomenon. I felt like the richness of the questions we got because it was so multilayered were better questions than I’d ever seen with students on developing the Driving Question Board. I think when you localize, kids are going to be more invested in what they’re learning. There’s been times where we’ve investigated things out in California, and we’re in Michigan, and I see that while it’s an interesting scenario, I don’t think you feel as connected to caring about wanting to find solutions because it’s not in your own backyard. I definitely saw a highlighted interest with students because it's something that’s affecting the kids and asking them who in the room is impacted by allergies or going home and asking parents and their parents recognizing that there was increased allergies now compared to their own childhood.
